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Books

All Things are Nothing To Me by Jacob Blumenfeld

Douglas Groothuis thinks nothing of Max Stirner’s nihilism.

Books on the less-than-famous Max Stirner (1806-1856) are rare, but an intrepid author, Jacob Blumenfeld, has found something of note for the contemporary reader. Stirner’s only volume, The Ego and Its Own (1844), has been called both the most revolutionary book ever written and the worst book ever written. His thought has sparked the interest of anarchists, libertarians, existentialists, Bohemians, nihilists, and more. Stirner certainly presses a certain form of atheism to its ultimate end. Karl Marx wrote against Stirner in The German Ideology (1846), which may be a good prima facie reason to read Stirner; but, of course, the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

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